HP: CBI makes first arrest in HPPCL chief engineer Vimal Negi death case

Shimla, Sep 14 (PTI) Nearly four months after the Himachal Pradesh High Court transferred the probe into HPCL chief engineer Vimal Negi's mysterious death to the CBI, the agency on Sunday made the first arrest in the case, taking into custody a suspended assistant sub-inspector accused of tampering with evidence.

The case had snowballed into a major controversy with Negi's wife claiming that her husband was tortured by his superiors in office. The opposition BJP had alleged deep-rooted corruption and accusing the state government of shielding the guilty.

"The CBI has arrested the suspended Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Pankaj Sharma on Sunday, and he will be produced in the court tomorrow (Monday) for remand," senior officials in CBI told the PTI.

The body of Vimal Negi, who had gone missing on March 10, 2025, from Shimla, was recovered from Govind Sagar Lake in Bilaspur district on March 18, and Sharma was the first person to recover his pen drive and other documents and was accused of tampering with the evidence.

According to the postmortem report, the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (HPPCL) chief engineer had died about five days before his body was found.

His wife Kiran Negi had moved the High Court, demanding a CBI probe into his death, and the court accepted the plea and transferred the case to federal agency on May 23 this year.

Sources said that the CBI had questioned Pankaj Sharma several times regarding the allegations that some important data was deleted from the pen drive, which was allegedly formatted, and finally arrested him on Sunday.

The arrest is very significant as it could expose the persons who allegedly asked him to "tamper" with crucial evidence, the sources said. Pankaj Sharma had allegedly kept the pen drive with him.

The CBI had registered a case of abetment to suicide under sections 108 and 3(5) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita in connection with Negi's death and had questioned a large number of persons. Statements of family members of Negi were also taken by the CBI.

Kiran Negi had alleged that her husband was tortured by the superior officers for six months before his death and they had also misbehaved with him. "Negi was intentionally forced to work late at night even during illness," she had said.

The then state Director General of Police Atul Verma and Shimla Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Gandhi, who was heading the Special Investigation Team in the case, were involved in an open spat over the handling of the probe. PTI BPL RT RT